Ventana Sur Plans to Draw More Blood

Splat pics showcase adds works in progress, co-prod meet to December edition

Following a massive response to its announcement of the Blood Window Latin American genre showcase, Ventana Sur, Latin America’s biggest movie market meet, will adds a work-in-progress strand and a co-production meet, both featuring gore and shock fare from Latin America.

Organized by Argentina’s Incaa Film Institute and the Cannes Film Market, and now building up for its fifth edition, Ventana Sur will unspool Dec. 3-6 in Buenos Aires.

Jose Luis Rebordinos, director of Spain’s San Sebastian Film Festival, will select the six titles for Bloody Work in Progress, a six pics-in-production showcase.

A fanboy who is introducing genre-gristle into San Sebastian, Rebordinos served for 21 years as the director of the San Sebastian Fantastic and Horror Week.

San Sebastian and Ventana Sur have already established links via the Spanish festival’s Europe-Latin America Co-production Forum, celebrating its second edition this September. A clutch of producers who pitch projects at the Forum are invited to Ventana Sur to continue negotiations.

The Beyond the Window initiative will see 13 Latin American genre projects pitched to an audience of industry genre specialists and included in a catalog available to attendees.

Since launching in 2009, Ventana Sur has ramped up dramatically, seeing more than 2,000 attendees at last year’s edition.

Blood Window looks set to signify further growth, with an extra posse of genre pic buyers and specialists being invited to Ventana Sur, the Incaa’s Bernardo Bergeret, who directs Ventana Sur with Cannes’ Jerome Paillard, said at the Venice Film Market.

Blood Window will bow its first edition as Latin America’s genre pic production, often made outside public film funding systems, is also growing exponentially. Handled by top sales agents, key genre titles — Uruguay’s “La casa muda,” Colombia’s El Paramo — have seen robust sales.